Interesting design. I'd like to see a lot more adaptive reuse of heritage buildings around the downtown area. The top-notch buildings (e.g. Province House) should be left as-is but most others are best if they're modernized so that they don't sit empty or underused.

I believe the Armour Group proposal will be above everything, including the building with the Subway on the other side, and 80,000 sq. ft implies something much taller given the footprint. I have no problem with this - the street level is most important and the downtown needs to be more built up so it becomes busier. I also think that the hole next to Morse's Teas should be filled in.

It would be nice to see a rendering for this but I haven't been able to find one.

Nice design, no doubt the economics require significantly more massing to make a redevelopment profitable.

It is unfortunate that the Irving building will be torn down. That stretch with O'Carrols on one side and Historic properties on the other is one of few streetscapes left like that. The new building will be squat and occupy the block except for the Morses Tea building. The design is glass, square and bulky at 9 floors. It will be like Belmont House stuck on that corner.

Irving? The building on the corner says Imperial Oil (presumably it dates to the same era as the refinery) and as far as I know that's registered and will not be torn down.

The building in the demolition application is the green, three storey wood structure in the middle of the block. It's one of those buildings that makes you wonder how it survived for so long without being replaced by something better - it's nowhere near the level of quality of its neighbours.

Correct, the last building on upperwater street, the green wooden structure will be torn down to accomadate the new development. The imperial building remains, along with the other 3 heritage buildings.

In the end one wooden building goes so that 4 can remain. The wooden building has no historical significance. Also i have seen the design and i like it, nice clean look that appears to meet all current MPS bylaws and use of materials that are found throughout many of the structures downtown.

Lets hope heritage don't stick their foot into this one.

That looks dynamic, and is forward looking architechture. Maybe we could finally convince those heritage nuts, that this should be the direction the heritage buildings take. I like it.

There’s an article in allnovascotia.com regarding Armour Groups Court Case to remove the heritage designation on the violet Clarke building and force HRM to issue a demo permit. Guess it gets heard Monday in the Nova Scotia court of appeals. There is evidence that the building was registered incorrectly.

This looks like the start of the battle between HRM, Heritage and the Developer. Got to give The Armour group credit on this one as they seem to be the only developer wishing to redevelop heritage properties and incorporate modern facilities into the redesign.

I hope we see this project get the green light as it would be positive news for our downtown core, which is been subjected to a lot of negativity for too many years

I hate to state the obvious, but it would be a real shame if this gets quashed for the sake of the little green building.

Yes it would, i've seen the design first hand and its cool and fits very well.

Any idea on when the design/render will be released for the public?

(I assume if it were readily available it would have already appeared in this thread)

I would imagine soon as once this process is done it will become a case for HRM council to review. There is signage on the property that the developer has filled a development agreement for the properties. I gather we will see the renderings there.

Andy Lynch is the architect, so its a good design.

Rendering is out on Armourgroup.com site

http://armourgroup.com/uploads/prope...ter%20full.jpg

Looks okay. The perspective in the rendering is a little weird - I guess they did it to make the building look smaller. In practice this building would be maybe 40% as tall as 1801 Hollis.

The only part that looks bad is the ground level part where the current wooden building will be demolished, but that part of the rendering may not even be what the final building will look like. I would prefer it if they simply brought the glass office structure down to ground level, maybe with a large lobby covering the whole space all the way up to the roof line of the other buildings.

a glass atrium entrance would most definitely be good in place of the wooden building. kind of like the bank of nova scotia tower in toronto.

There is something wrong with this rendering. The initial plan was to demolish the Irving building that now houses O'Carroll's and add a 9 storey glass box. This plan is a mess, it is not a real rendering but merely a bad cut and paste. Given the site, it would be a shame to go to so much trouble and not build higher. The site should be considered for a Founders Square type development only higher. This site could easily accommodate a 20 storey building and should as it is right in the middle of the finincial district.

The plan was never to demolish the irving (imperial) building. That is a heritage property. The plan is to demolish the violet clarke building, the small green wooden building that isn;t a heritage property.

I don't see anything wrong with it, its a nice fit. Got to remember the building is in the view plan, max height is 9 storey.

I don't mind the height, but it looks kinda plain to me. I was hoping for an actual just glass box, i don't think i like the roof.

Yeah, I'm not crazy about the roof either.

Here's roughly how I guess it will fit in (I probably made it slightly too tall):

http://www.pbase.com/image/94350658/original.jpg

Looks like the cladding will be something along the lines of the RIM building (which itself sort of looks like an updated Xwave building). It will probably look nice.

Something else to keep in mind is that the law courts' days are numbered at this point.

The building will feature clear glazing and use nova scotia sandstone. The Hollis side is glass to the ground floor in the area where people pass through to Historic properties/ granville street mall.